


The Death Eater & the Auror

by WeasleyHuffleclaw (DisnerdingAvenger)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1970s-1990s, Ambiguous Villainy, Aurors, Death Eaters, Duelling, Hogwarts Era, M/M, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Origin Story, Original Character(s), Quidditch World Cup (1975), Year One (Hogwarts), Year Two (Hogwarts)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-01 07:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18331706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisnerdingAvenger/pseuds/WeasleyHuffleclaw
Summary: The hero’s story is always told with reverence, while the villain’s story is uttered with distaste and, sometimes, spitting upon saying their name. It is worth noting, however, that every villain is the hero in their own story – and, sometimes, a “villain” is really just a very unfortunate victim of very unfortunate circumstances.Bartemius Crouch Jr. is one of such villains.(Or, the Barty Crouch Jr. origin story wherein he and his best friend fall in love at Hogwarts in the 1970s and there's a whole bunch of angst as a result.)





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this is all Megan's fault. I was just minding my business, admiring pictures of Michael Sheen, and she tweeted "[he](https://twitter.com/PicsSheen/status/1078194698076991489) looks like Barty Crouch Jr's nemesis/boyfriend" - and thus, Edgar Finch was born. I've grown intensely attached to this crackship in less than 24 hours, so buckle up, fam. It's gonna be a wild ride.

The hero’s story is always told with reverence, while the villain’s story is uttered with distaste and, sometimes, spitting upon saying their name. It is worth noting, however, that every villain is the hero in their own story –

\- and, sometimes, a “villain” is really just a very unfortunate victim of very unfortunate circumstances.

Bartemius Crouch Jr. is one of such villains.

You know the story of the Boy Who Lived: he defeated Lord Voldemort when he was a baby, had a lightning scar, and saved the Wizarding World from tyrannical rule and complete and utter destruction. You know that his name is Harry Potter and that he is a hero.

But do you know the story of the Death Eater & the Auror? Do you know the story of two Slytherin boys who were best friends at Hogwarts, utterly inseparable for the better part of seven years? Do you know that they fell in love, during a time in which their love was still scorned and invalidated? Do you know that these best friends were ripped apart on a most unfortunate night, but that they found their way back to each other against all odds?

Do you know that, despite the appearance of guilt, the Death Eater & the Auror were innocents?

Of course you don’t. They were villains, after all.

A villain’s story, however, is still a story – and this one happens to be quite good.

This is the story of Barty Crouch Jr. & Edgar Finch.


	2. Barty & Edgar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's September 1st of 1974. On Platform 9 3/4, a friendship is born.

The arrival of September 1st of 1974 had been waited upon by throngs of eager eleven-year-olds for the entire summer. Never before had they waited with bated breath for the heat to be leached out of the summer air; for the days to grow shorter; for the nights to grow crisp and for the leaves to begin changing colour. When you’re a child, you wish that summer could last forever – but when you’re a child about to start your first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it can’t end fast enough.

For Edgar Finch, who was sitting on a bench at Platform 93/4 with a book in his lap, the last few moments of summer seemed to be ticking by with agonizing slowness. His mother, Mrs. Eleanor Finch, had thought it would be a good idea to have her son to King’s Cross Station early – around three hours early, to be precise. The train hadn’t even arrived yet. Like diligent parents, Mrs. Eleanor Finch and Mr. Rodwell Finch had waited with Edgar for exactly two hours and forty-five minutes, but then Edgar’s six-year-old sister, Cecilia, had started to complain that she was hungry and wanted to go home. Not about to risk a tantrum, the Finches gave their son hugs and kissed him goodbye, leaving him to wait out the last few moments before boarding on his own; he was mature for his age, after all.

He was currently getting an early start on his studies, leafing through a copy of Newton Scamander’s _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. Presently, he was briefing himself on the Ministry of Magic’s magical creature classification system:

> **XXXXX: Known wizard killer/impossible to train or domesticate**
> 
> **XXXX: Dangerous/requires specialist knowledge/skilled wizard may handle**
> 
> **XXX: Competent wizard should cope**
> 
> **XX: Harmless/may be domesticated**
> 
> **X: Boring**

He found himself wondering, absently, where his cousin Arnold’s rat would fit. Logically, Edgar knew that rats were probably a Class XX magical creature at most, but Arnold Finch’s rat was a nasty thing that would bite off your thumb if you got too close. It was while he was deliberating this very important question that he caught sight of another boy and his parents venturing nearer, a trunk being dragged along behind him. He looked miserable.

He appeared to be a few inches taller than Edgar - who was of average height for an eleven-year-old boy - but you’d never know it to look at him; he was slumped over, staring at his shiny shoes while he pulled his trunk behind him. It was then that Edgar noticed there were three adults with the boy, not just two; he had assumed that the slim witch with dark hair was an older sister, perhaps, but she was busy scribbling on a notepad while the father spoke, barely stopping for breath. An assistant, then, not a sister.

“…simply _will not_ be tolerated. It would be straight to Azkaban with the lot of them if it were up to me, but we have to give them bloody _due process,_ so you’ll need to schedule a room at the Ministry for the trail, and – _Bartemius, stop slouching!_ ”

The boy – whose name, evidently, was Bartemius – jumped at being addressed, standing up straight as his brown eyes flicked anxiously up to look at his father.

“You’d think we were walking you to your death, not to the Hogwarts Express. Bloody ungrateful… Where was I?”

The last bit was directed at the dark-haired witch.

“Scheduling a room for the trial, Mr. Crouch, sir.”

“Right, yes. You’ll need to schedule a room at the Ministry for a trial, whether we like it or not. No one is going to want to waste their time on such good-for-nothings, but we haven’t got much of a choice.”

Upon his father’s attention drifting back to work-related matters, the boy slouched again. The wisp-like blonde woman at his side, who appeared to be his mother, laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. At this point, dozens of other families were beginning to crowd the platform; the train had arrived roughly five minutes prior and was nearly ready to start taking on passengers.

“Just remember, darling, not to fret over what house you get put into. The Sorting Hat knows what it’s doing,” the boy’s mother stated when they finally came to a stop a few feet away from Edgar and his bench. She busied herself with straightening his robes while the father continued to orate tasks to his assistant. “No one house is better than another.”

The boy, glancing toward his father once and back again, muttered, “You’re just saying that because you were in Hufflepuff.”

“I learned plenty of valuable lessons in Hufflepuff,” his mother countered with a smile and a kiss to his forehead, and the boy heaved a woeful sigh.

“Father won’t like it if I’m put in Hufflepuff. You know he won’t.”

Edgar, who couldn’t help eavesdropping with them so close, bit his tongue for as long as he could before he blurted out, “Lots of great wizards have come out of Hufflepuff. The auror Timothee Smolt was a Hufflepuff and he set the record for most dark wizards caught in 1959.”

Both the boy and his mother glanced in Edgar’s direction when he spoke. Edgar blushed and looked back down at his book, pretending to be very invested in a page on Leprechauns (which were Class XXX magical creatures, respectfully). The woman cracked a smile before looking back at her son.

“See? If your father has anything to say about it, you just tell him about Timothee Smolt.”

Giving a sharp nod, the boy stared at her for a long moment. Then he sniffled.

Of course, _that_ was what drew his father’s attention back to him. He paused in the middle of instructing his assistant to take down notes on an upcoming prisoner transfer, scowling as he snapped, “What are you _crying_ for? I didn’t spend a small fortune on books, robes, and a new trunk for you to _cry_. Suck those tears back in, boy, or _so help me_ , I will stomp that bloody owlet to death!”

In the cage that the gangly, miserable boy was clutching, a tiny brown owl gave a distressed little _hoot!_ The boy’s hands were shaking now, causing the cage to tremble, but he stood up straight and blinked back his tears – if only for the owl’s sake, and perhaps his mother’s.

“I haven’t got time for this. Darling, say your goodbyes; I’m expected at the Ministry in a half hour.”

With that, the father stalked off toward the exit. His assistant hesitated and offered the boy a smile as she said, “Best of luck at Hogwarts, Barty,” before hurrying after his disgruntled father. Now it was the mother’s turn to sniffle; the wispy-looking women forced a smile despite the tears in her eyes and pulled her son into a hug, one as tight as her thin arms would allow.

“You’ll do wonderfully, my darling. Just you wait and see.”

Lifting a hand to her cheeks to wipe away her own tears, she gave him one last squeeze before drawing back with a reassuring look, adding on a whisper, “Things will be better at Hogwarts.”

Edgar didn’t have to wonder very hard about why, exactly, Hogwarts would be better than home. He suddenly felt a bit guilty for having a good family, odd as it was; his parents, while both were pure-blooded Slytherin alumni, hadn’t put any pressure on him about where the Sorting Hat might put him. They didn’t put much pressure on him about anything, really – not that they had to. Edgar had always been naturally brilliant and didn’t require much of a push. Still, he pitied this gangly boy; he clearly hadn’t had life quite so easy.

With one last kiss to his forehead and a squeeze, the boy’s mother forced herself to set off in search of her husband, leaving her son alone on the platform to await boarding. He still looked miserable, but marginally less so now that his father’s overbearing-yet-simultaneously-absentee presence was gone. After a moment of silence and hesitation, the boy turned to look at Edgar and asked, “Is that true? What you said about a Hufflepuff being an auror?”

Perking up when he was spoken to directly, Edgar looked up from his book and nodded. From this vantage point, without having to cast sly glances out of the corner of his eye, he was finally able to get a good look at the boy. He was tall, but slouching; had messy, light brown hair and a smattering of freckles on his nose; good cheekbones for his age (probably because he was so skinny and anxious-looking); and light brown eyes that Edgar found himself thinking, absentmindedly, reminded him of chocolate milk.

In comparison, Edgar himself was an average-sized eleven-year-old, if a bit on the chubby side, with curly brown hair a few shades darker than the other boy’s. His eyes were a muted hazel that alternated between looking green, blue, or brown depending upon the weather; his mother had affectionately told him it was because he was a bit more magical than the rest of them, but Edgar was quite certain there were muggles whose eyes could do the exact same thing. He didn’t feel that anything about him was revolutionary except, perhaps, his brain. He was smart and he knew it, and he had every intention of doing great things at Hogwarts and beyond. He really _was_ very mature for his age.

“It’s completely true,” Edgar assured the boy, offering him a small smile. “I read it a while back in the most recent edition of _A History of Magic_. He was quite a big deal, Timothee Smolt. I think I’d like to be just like him one day.”

“An auror?” the boy asked, shifting from foot to foot as he held onto the handle of his trunk in a tight grip. Edgar shrugged.

“Maybe – but I really just meant the successful part.”

“Ah. You want to be _famous_ ,” the boy stated, with a small smile of his own – the first that Edgar had seen grace his face. Edgar returned it with a cheeky grin of his own.

“Maybe.”

The boy clearly didn’t know what to do with himself as he awkwardly poked at the cement beneath his feet with one of his shiny shoes, so Edgar finally asked, “Would you like to sit? I think they’re going to start boarding us soon, but until then-”

“Sure, thanks,” the boy said, rather in a rush, before plunking himself down at Edgar’s side. After a moment of hesitation, he looked at the book in Edgar’s lap and asked, “What’re you reading?”

Edgar perked up instantly. If there was one thing that he loved, it was talking about books.

“It’s Newton Scamander’s _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. We’re not actually supposed to start using it until Year Three, according to my cousin Arnold, but I wanted to get started on it early.”

“A full two years early?” the boy asked with a wry smile and Edgar shrugged, flipping to a page on Lobalugs (Class XXX: _The Lobalug is found at the bottom of the North Sea. It is a simple creature, ten inches long, comprising a rubbery spout and a venom sack. When threatened, the Lobalug contracts its venom sack, blasting the attacker with poison. Merpeople use the Lobolug as a weapon and wizards have been known to extract its poison for use in potions, though this practice is strictly controlled)_.

Edgar just smirked. “Being ahead is better than being behind.”

The boy shrugged, slouching in his seat as he watched the conductor slip off of the train. He was beginning to guide everyone in the right direction while a coachman took students’ luggage, so he nudged Edgar to get his attention. They both stood and headed toward the steadily growing queue. Once they were in line, the boy offered Edgar his hand.

“I’m Barty, by the way; I should’ve said before. Barty Crouch Jr.”

Taking his hand, Edgar gave it a shake – surprisingly firm for an eleven-year-old but, as previously stated, he was mature for his age – and said, “Good to meet you, Barty. I’m Edgar Finch.”

“Edgar,” Barty mused, grinning impishly as he asked, “How do you feel about being called ‘Eddie’?”

Edgar wrinkled his nose with distaste and muttered, “Please don’t.”

Barty just snickered and, after handing his trunk over to the waiting coachman, followed Edgar onto the train.

* * *

All the way from King’s Cross to Hogwarts, Edgar and Barty babbled animatedly back and forth; Edgar told Barty everything that he had learned about Hogwarts so far from books and from his cousin, and Barty eagerly jumped in when the subject of house quidditch matches came up. Whatever house he got placed in, he hoped to make the team at some point; his father could ignore many things, but surely he would show up to quidditch matches if he got a good position, wouldn’t he? Perhaps he would even be proud of him. That would be a first.

By the time they reached the station in Hogsmeade, Edgar and Barty were friends. They’d made it official when the trolley lady came by with chocolate frogs, prompting them to break out their card collections and start swapping for ones that they needed. The swapping of chocolate frog cards between eleven-year-olds is essentially a binding contract for a lifelong friendship.

As they sat in the Great Hall with all of the other First Years awaiting Dumbledore’s arrival, Barty nudged Edgar and asked, “What house do you think you’ll be in?”

Cheek leaning against his palm, eyes aimed up at the enchanted ceiling with fascination, Edgar mused, “Ravenclaw, I expect. My parents said it’s where they put all of the exceptionally smart students. To get into the dorms, you have to answer a riddle instead of having a password.”

Barty wrinkled his nose. He liked to think he was reasonably clever, but a riddle? That just sounded unnecessarily tedious.

“What about you?” Edgar asked, shifting his gaze from the ceiling to look at Barty. Barty sagged slightly at having the question turned back on him.

He’d assumed, for as long as he’d spent thinking about it (which was quite a bit, recently), that he would be in Hufflepuff. It was where the cowards were put; that’s what his father, while never explicitly saying so, had implied. He wouldn’t care if his son were a Ravenclaw, or a Gryffindor, or a Slytherin – but a _Hufflepuff?_ The first time his wife had mentioned it as a possibility, Bartemius Crouch Sr. had scoffed. But now that he knew Hufflepuffs could be aurors? _Successful_ aurors? Barty had no idea whatsoever where he would end up.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, resuming his characteristic slouch. Such was the self-same moment that Dumbledore breezed into the Great Hall, spectacles on his nose and a grin on his lips. Barty didn’t know much about Hogwarts (aside from what Edgar had told him on the train), but he did know one thing: his father didn’t like Albus Dumbledore. He said he was meddlesome, and there were very few things Barty Crouch Sr. hated more than meddlers – of the few things that he _did_ despise more, his own son ranked rather high. He looked at him as a meek, miserable disappointment and made him painfully aware that he thought so.

His father hated Albus Dumbledore, but Dumbledore was also the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Barty didn’t know which would be better for him; to be in Dumbledore’s good graces, or to not be. He was so distracted by his own thoughts and his worries about being sorted that he tuned out for most of the Headmaster’s speech; it was only when Professor McGonagall began calling out the names of First Years to come and get sorted that his attention was drawn back to the present.

A girl named Shelby Aarons was first up; the Sorting Hat, with an authoritative voice, declared her to be in “ _Ravenclaw!_ ” Then there was Peter Anders (“ _Gryffindor!_ ”) and several other A’s, and Archibald Binns (“ _Hufflepuff!_ ”) and all the B’s; Barty sat, shifting anxiously, through most of the C’s until McGonagall finally reached his own name.

“Bartemius Crouch?”

Edgar gave him a reassuring nudge, prompting Barty to rise from the table of First Years and venture forth. He wasn’t sure how he felt about having so many eyes on him, but that was the least of his worries. When he sat down on the stool and had the Sorting Hat placed upon his head, he thought that he was going to have a heart attack.

Inwardly, he found himself thinking, “ _Not Hufflepuff. Not Hufflepuff. Anything but Hufflepuff._ ”

_“Why not Hufflepuff?”_

The voice appeared to have originated in his own head and Barty gave a startled jump. Was the Hat… _talking_ to him? Could it do that? No one had told him it could do that. Gulping, he hesitated before thinking, “ _It will just give my father more reason to despise me._ ”

A noise rather like a thoughtful hum rang through Barty’s head.

“ _Not Hufflepuff, then; not enough loyalty to be in Hufflepuff, anyway. Too changeable. Not a fan of riddles, either, I see; not a Ravenclaw, then. Perhaps a Gryffindor?_ ”

Barty held his breath.

After a moment he heard the Sorting Hat’s voice again – this time externally rather than in his mind.

“ _Slytherin!_ ”

Barty sagged with relief as a round of cheers came from the table in question, and he floated in that direction whilst still rather in a daze. The Hat had considered Gryffindor – why didn’t it put him there?

_Because you’re a coward_ , his father’s voice snapped in his head. Barty did his best to ignore it. Slytherin wouldn’t be so bad; his family tree had plenty of Slytherins.

Back at the table full of yet-unsorted First Years, Edgar impatiently rapped his fingers on the table as the Hat worked its way through the remainder of the C’s, and then through a slew of D’s, and an absurd number of E’s. Finally, after Genevieve Fiddler (“ _Hufflepuff!_ ”) and Harold Figg (“ _Gryffindor!_ ”), his pivotal moment arrived.

“Edgar Finch?”

Grinning, Edgar got to his feet and walked, far more eagerly and quite self-assured, up to the stool. The Hat didn’t take nearly as long deliberating upon where to put him as it had with Barty.

“ _You think you’re quite smart, don’t you?_ ” it asked. Edgar had been prepared for this; Arnold told him that, sometimes, the Sorting Hat spoke to students while it made its decision. Inwardly, Edgar said, “ _Yes._ ”

“ _You think you’re going to be quite something, eh?_ ”

Again, Edgar thought, “ _Yes._ ”

Without any further deliberation, the Sorting Hat shouted, “ _Slytherin!_ ”

Edgar blinked as Professor McGonagall lifted the Hat from his head and ushered him away from the stool to bring up the next student. (Abigail Flint, “ _Ravenclaw!_ ”)

Slytherin? That wasn’t what he’d expected. If not Ravenclaw, then perhaps Gryffindor; after all, most of the careers he had considered thus far were quite dangerous and required a tremendous amount of courage, dragon tamer being among them. Obviously, he’d ranked Slytherin above Hufflepuff, but still. His third choice? It was odd. Not bad, just odd.

Crossing over to the table, Edgar squeezed his way between a blonde girl named Belladonna Drake, who had been sorted shortly before him, and Barty, so that he could sit beside his new friend. To his credit, Barty looked relieved to have him there; Belladonna, on the other hand, looked rather disgruntled at being nudged so rudely aside.

“I guess we’re in this together, eh?” Barty asked and Edgar, slowly emerging from his self-reflection, offered him a grin.

“Guess so. But if there’s a bed next to a window, I’m calling dibs on it right now.”

Barty made no move to object.

* * *

As the months passed and classes got well underway, so too did Barty and Edgar’s friendship. They got on like a house on fire and quickly rose in rank from friends to good friends to the best of friends by the time December rolled around. Most of the professors weren’t quite sure what to do with the duo; while Edgar was clearly the most intelligent student in their year, he constantly paired up with Barty for in-class projects – and, in the case of Potions, that often resulted in small explosions. You could perhaps say that Edgar’s prioritizing loyalty to his best friend over success foreshadowed events to come decades later – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Barty was happy. He fit in well with the other Slytherins and, for the first time in his life, he had a _friend_. He wasn’t a genius by far, but he was passing all of his classes and his future at Hogwarts looked promising. Edgar had gotten him into pre-reading for class (largely because there wasn’t much else to do while Edgar had his nose stuck in a book), and his relative success thus far could be largely attributed to this newly developed habit. It was because things were going so well for him at Hogwarts, as his mother had anticipated, that Barty was dreading returning home for the holidays.

Edgar had been able to sense, as Christmas drew nearer, that Barty was feeling off; he didn’t seem to take any pleasure from the brightly decorated tree in the Great Hall, and he pushed his plum pudding around on his plate at dinner like it was capable of poisoning him. Finally, while they sat in their dormitory one evening and revised for a Transfiguration test, Edgar spoke up.

“Is everything alright? You seem… gloomy,” he observed as he sat on his bed, back against the wall. As requested, he got the bed closest to the window. It was starting to snow outside, and the sight made Barty heave a dreadful sigh.

“Fine. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Edgar clearly didn’t believe him for even a second. After having his eyes glued to Barty, unwaveringly, for a solid minute, the other boy spoke up again.

“Alright, alight! Quit staring at me, will you?” Huffing, Barty frowned down at his Transfiguration notes, shuffling the papers on his green bedspread as he muttered, “Just don’t want to go home, is all. I like it here.”

“Well, it’s not as if you can never come back. It’s only for a few weeks, after all,” Edgar reminded him, perplexed. “Why don’t you want to go home? Won’t you be happy to see your mother?”

“My mother? Sure,” Barty agreed, frowning more pointedly as he turned a page in his textbook with a bit more force than necessary, causing it to tear. Grumbling, he cast a quick _“Reparo!”_ under his breath, seamlessly fixing the ripped page. While he was rubbish at Potions, Barty had displayed an affinity for Charms, particularly the more difficult ones. “But my father? My father will find something wrong with my progress - if he even graces me with a single glance the entire time I’m home. I’ll probably end up spending most of the holiday with Winky while he’s off at the Ministry, paying all his attention to the dark wizards he convicts. He pays more attention to that lot than he ever has to me.”

Edgar frowned faintly with sympathy. Choosing to focus on part of what Barty disclosed that didn’t sound wholly negative, he asked, “Who’s Winky?”

“She’s our house elf. Has been for as long as I can remember,” Barty sighed, rolling onto his stomach and leaning his cheek against his palm while he stared at the repaired page. “She’s always following me around like a shadow, trying to start up conversations and bringing me sweets she stole from the kitchen. The bloody thing _pities_ me; a _house elf_ pities _me_ , all because my father has despised me ever since my first word was ‘hide’ instead of ‘Future Minister of Magic, Bartemius Crouch’.”

“That’s an awfully big mouthful for a first word,” Edgar mused with a small smile. Barty snorted.

“Still, it’s what he expects. He wanted a mini version of himself when I was born – hence the name – and all he got was a skinny kid who finds politics boring. I don’t want to follow in his footsteps, so he doesn’t want me.”

“Well, what do you want to do, then?”

Once again, Barty shrugged, sighing as he lifted his gaze to look over at Edgar. Confident, brilliant, self-assured Edgar: he was everything that Barty wished he could be. Maybe that’s why he liked him so much. Even if _he_ didn’t have his life together at eleven, it made him feel better to be around someone who did. If, at the end of the road, he was still unsure, he could always poach whatever idea Edgar settled upon.

“I dunno,” Barty stated, pursing his lips briefly in thought. “Nothing’s really struck me as the sort of thing I’d like to spend forever doing. Not that it really matters; no matter what I do, Father will disapprove.”

Staring thoughtfully at Barty for a long moment, Edgar mused, “You ought to do something sensational. Something people will write about in _A History of Magic_. He wouldn’t be able to ignore you if you did that.”

Rolling onto his back, Barty stared at the green drapes above his bed.

_That didn’t sound like such a bad idea._

* * *

The holidays, as Barty had predicted, were miserable. Much of them were spent up in his room, bored out of his mind what with not being allowed to practice magic at home. He resorted to reading several of the books that Edgar had let him borrow for lack of anything else to do and, of course, his father even had something negative to say about _that_.

_“Look at you, with your nose buried in a book; why couldn’t you have been put in Ravenclaw? That’s where you should be. All of the smartest Ministry men have come out of Ravenclaw, and you go and get yourself put in Slytherin. Who's ever heard of a bookish Slytherin?”_

If he didn’t study, he got scolded, and if he _did_ study, his father found fault in that, too. Barty just couldn’t win.

As expected, Winky frequently brought him bits and bobbles from the kitchen and, when he wasn’t reading, trailed after him around the house and asked him questions about Hogwarts. Barty knew that she pitied him, and the knowledge of that pity was enough to drive him mad.

* * *

Edgar’s holiday was much better in comparison. His parents were chuffed that he’d been sorted into Slytherin, just like them and their parents before them; they’d been so sure that Edgar would break the chain by being in Ravenclaw. Thus, having a Slytherin son was a pleasant surprise.

They were equally chuffed when they learned who he’d made friends with. Bartemius Crouch Sr. was a good man, according to his family, and his son would be a good connection to have moving forward. If a career at the Ministry was what he wanted as an endgame, ties to Barty Crouch, who many wizards and witches thought was a shoo-in for future Minister of Magic, would prove endlessly useful.

Edgar had kept to himself that the junior Barty Crouch did not exactly see eye-to-eye with the senior. It didn’t feel like his story to share, even if it was only with his parents.

* * *

Despite the fact that Edgar’s holiday was much better than Barty’s, both were equally glad to return to Hogwarts in January. Barty found that he had a better appreciation for the campus being covered in snow when it didn’t serve as a daunting reminder of having to go home; it was very likely that, in its place, the melting of the snow signaling the coming of spring would become just as daunting. But for now, with a few solid months of snow still ahead, Barty took having sniffles and red cheeks with a smile.

Edgar wasn’t quite so jovial. Early February found him with a miserable cold, likely the product of sleeping in the damp, drafty dungeons in the dead of winter; it wasn’t rare for Slytherin students to fall ill. In fact, it was practically a right of passage. He’d just hoped that he would be able to avoid it on the pretense of sheer stubbornness alone.

He hadn’t. When the sixth of February rolled around, he was a shivering, sneezing, exhausted mess. It was a rubbish way to spend any Wednesday, much less one’s birthday.

Sitting in the Great Hall at lunch, bleary-eyed and coughing, Edgar found that most of their fellow students, rather than cheerfully wishing him a happy twelfth birthday, were all edging as far away from him as possible to avoid catching whatever he had. Barty was the sole exception; when he walked into the Great Hall, with his small brown owl perched on his shoulder, he made a point of sitting directly at Edgar’s side. He was still asleep when Barty went to breakfast earlier in the day, having been up all night wheezing; he even missed Potions and Transfiguration, and Edgar never missed class. It was truly catastrophic and was shaping up to be the worst birthday ever.

Barty seemed to have missed the memo.

“There you are! Good to see you up and about. I was worried I’d have to get Slughorn to send for Madam Pomfrey if you didn’t get up soon. He was worried, y’know, when you didn’t show up to Potions. You know how much he likes having you in his class. Anyhow – _happy birthday!!!_ ”

It was the most enthusiastic that Edgar had ever seen Barty be; his owl, which he had named Dodger for her ability to dodge objects lobbed at her by his father (and who he affectionately called “Dodgie”), even gave a happy little _hoot!_ in unison. Perhaps Edgar was just imagining that Barty seemed more cheerful than usual; it could have just been that he himself was in such low spirits that everyone seemed absurdly happy in comparison.

“I don’t think I’d call it a ‘happy’ birthday,” Edgar grumbled, rather nasally, as he slumped in his seat. It was an effort just to keep his eyes open. “More like ‘miserable’, ‘the worst’, or – if you wanna be _really_ accurate – you could’ve said, ‘Miserable death-day, Edgar,’ because I feel like I’m going to die. I really do. I’m not going to live through this.”

“That sounds just a tad dramatic,” Barty reasoned as he reached out to grab a sandwich from one of the many lunch platters on the table. Edgar merely exhaled a miserable noise in response as a rather violent shiver ran through him. Several other first years took it as a hint to move further away, but Barty chose to move closer.

“Here,” he said after a moment, shrugging out of his robes to pull his grey jumper over his head, pressing it into Edgar’s hands. “You look like you’re about to turn blue, shivering like that.”

Edgar blinked several times, his brain taking a moment in its exhausted state to catch up with what was happening as he stared at the jumper. Barty shrugged his robes back on before starting in on his sandwich. In the process of shuffling about, Dodgie ended up perched atop his head.

“You’ll get house points taken off for not being in your full uniform,” Edgar stated, glancing over at Barty. Barty just shrugged.

“Slytherin can afford to lose a point or two for a good cause. We’ll lose far more if our star pupil ‘dies’ of a cold,” Barty remarked, smirking. Edgar sniffled again before shrugging out of his robes to tug Barty’s jumper on over top of his own. It was a bit tight, regardless of the fact that it was being layered over another jumper, but the snugness hindered his shivering, which was a step in the right direction.

Pulling his robes back on, Edgar sniffled once more before saying, “Thank you.”

He punctuated the statement with a sneeze that shook their entire bench. The sound startled Dodgie, who launched herself from Barty’s head and flapped toward the window to make her way back to the safety of the owlery.

Blowing his nose into a hankie, Edgar asked, “How come Dodgie was with you? You don’t normally go see her until after dinner, do you…?”

His eyes lighting up, Barty finished his sandwich before getting to his feet, gesturing for Edgar to follow him.

“I sent her with a letter to my mother a few weeks back asking her to pick you up a birthday gift for me. Mother just sent her back today with the package. C’mon; if you’re quick, you can open it before Charms.”

Coughing into his elbow as he got to his feet, Edgar trailed after Barty, his brain rather in a fog. He wasn’t even sure if he'd thought to eat while he’d been at the lunch table or if he’d just sat there, half asleep and wholly miserable, until Barty showed up. It was highly plausible.

Once they were down in the dungeon dormitory, Barty sat Edgar in the armchair closest to the common room’s fireplace before he hurried off to fetch the aforementioned birthday present. It was an immense struggle not to fall asleep where he sat; it was so warm, and the chair was so comfortable, and he was so _bloody tired…_

“…gar? _Edgar_.”

Edgar jolted slightly in his seat when he felt Barty shaking his shoulder. He’d nodded off. Forcing himself to sit up straight, he looked down at the parcel sitting on his lap, wrapped in green paper and tied with a silver ribbon. An homage to their mutual house, he supposed. He wondered if Barty wrapped it himself.

“You really didn’t have to get me anything, y’know,” Edgar mumbled as he pulled at the ribbon, sniffling again and blinking his tired eyelids, trying his hardest to keep them open.

“Of course I did,” Barty countered, perched on the arm of a chair a few feet away. “We’re friends. Friends give each other birthday gifts.”

Repressing a cough, Edgar tore at the paper on the gift –

\- and he stared, for a long while, at what he found beneath it.

It was a copy of Dylan Marwood’s _Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs_. He had mentioned the book to Barty ages ago when he let him borrow his finished copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_.

He certainly hadn’t expected Barty to remember such a small detail, much less had he expected Barty to _get him the book_.

“It’s…”

“-Marwood’s _Merpeople_. I remembered you saying that you wanted it, and I hoped you hadn’t gotten it from somebody for Christmas but I didn’t want to ask in case it made you figure out my plan.”

“It’s…”

“-the first edition. I know you wanted the second, but this was all Mother could find when she went to Flourish & Blotts; apparently, a group of Year Sevens bought up all the new editions just before Christmas. You still like it, though, don’t you?”

“It’s…”

“Edgar? Oh, you hate it. You hate it, don’t you? Or maybe you already have it. Merlin, this was stupid, I shouldn’t’ve-”

“It’s _wonderful_ ,” Edgar finally managed to finish, if a tad delayed, smiling at the book in his hands before smiling up at Barty.

Upon gaining a full reaction, Barty blinked and asked, “Really? You like it?”

“I _love it_ ,” Edgar decreed, giving a small, happy wiggle in his chair. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad birthday, after all. Upon receiving confirmation that he had done well, Barty grinned.

“I _knew_ you’d like it! Mother couldn’t figure out why anyone our age would want to read such an advanced book, but I wrote her back and told her that you’re the smartest wizard in our year and that you’ll probably be able to _speak_ fluent Merperson before we even take our O.W.L.s and – wait, is that right? Do you speak Merperson? Or do Merpeople have different languages, like English and French?”

While he was babbling, Barty had walked over to the glass, tank-like window that looked out into the lake; the rumor was that Merpeople lived in there, but he’d yet to see one with his own eyes. Older students attributed the eerie singing that sometimes filled the common room to the Merpeople, but Barty thought that was a bit farfetched given the castle was _literally_ haunted by dozens of ghosts, many of whom had good singing voices. 

Subsequently, he’d gotten himself rather distracted – so, when Edgar didn’t answer his question, he furrowed his brow and asked, “Edgar?”

When he turned back around, he found that his best friend had fallen asleep again in his chair, his head lolling against the plush cushioning of the wingback. A wave of sympathy floated through Barty and, without thinking twice about it, he grabbed a blanket from the back of one of the sofas and draped it over Edgar while he dozed. He’d need as much sleep as possible in order to get well again – and Barty _was_ good at Charms. If Edgar fell a bit behind, he was sure that he could help him catch up.

* * *

Barty was so good at Charms, in fact, that it was _him_ tutoring _Edgar_ when exams rolled around a few months later. While Edgar had to help him prepare for everything else, this was the one area where he was truly the superior wizard. It made Barty feel a bit smug. Not a lot, but a little bit.

Their exam was set to include a charm that shattered glass; a perfect shatter would obtain a perfect score. Thus far, Edgar’s casted charms had barely left a scratch on the mirror they were using to practice.

“It’s no use!” Edgar wailed, tossing his wand down on his mattress and flopping onto it, face first, mumbling into the duvet, “I’m going to fail the exam, which means I’ll fail the class, which means I’ll have to take it over again next year, which means I’ll fall behind, which means-!”

“ _Relax_ , will you?” Barty asked, rolling his eyes at his friend’s antics. “You’re just not concentrating hard enough. You’re used to things coming easily to you; Potions just requires following steps, Botany is just being able to remember which plants are poisonous and which aren’t – but no amount of studying makes Charms any easier. You’ve got to _practice_.”

“We’ve been _practicing_ for a half hour!” Edgar groaned, clearly not comforted by Barty’s speech. When he made no move to get up and try again, Barty huffed and, with a flick of his wand, muttered, _“Levicorpus!”_

Edgar gave a startled shout when he went from lying on his bed to dangling upside down in the air, held up by an invisible force clutching his ankle. With another talented flick of his wrist, Barty drew Edgar across the room until their faces were close together.

“You’re going to _practice_ ,” Barty instructed, brown eyes boring into hazel, “and you’re going to _keep_ practicing until you get it right.”

With another twirl and flick of his wand, Barty sat Edgar back down on his feet. Edgar looked a bit green from the experience, but he nodded and, rather dizzily, walked back over to retrieve his wand from his bed.

“Now,” Barty instructed with his hands – and wand – folded behind his back as his voice took on a lecturing quality, “The key to perfectly casting a charm is to do it with _flair_. Unless you’re confident that it’s going to work, it will probably backfire.” Smirking, he added, “You’ve got to take some of the confidence you have in everything else and place it behind your charms, Eddie.”

Edgar blushed and grumbled incoherently at the use of the nickname before asking, “Show me again how you do it?”

His smirk growing, Barty whirled around on his heel and, with an almost violent flick of his wrist, shouted, _“Finestra!”_

On the other side of the room, the tall mirror shattered in its casing and pieces of glass fell to the floor with a crash. When Barty muttered a clearly self-satisfied casting of “ _Reparo,_ ” the mirror put itself back together again. Edgar sighed heavily, glancing down at his own wand.

“I’m never going to be able to do it like that.”

“Not if you don’t _try_ ,” Barty stated, plopping himself down at the foot of his own bed before nodding at Edgar. “Go on. Give it another go.”

Taking a deep breath, Edgar stared at his wand, and then he stared at the mirror.

And then he _glared_ at the mirror.

_“Finestra!”_ he yelled and gave an angry flick of his arm. On the other side of the room, a sharp crack formed diagonally in the glass.

Barty smirked.

“ _Much_ better,” he declared, bouncing to his feet again and giving Edgar’s shoulder a squeeze. “Now, just imagine the mirror is someone who _really_ makes you _mad_. I like imagining it’s my father, but you could…” Humming thoughtfully, the boy declared with a grin, “imagine it’s someone who dog-eared the pages of all your books.”

His eyes flashing, Edgar flicked his arm again.

_“Finestra!”_

The glass shattered completely.

* * *

When the Hogwarts Express pulled to a stop in front of Platform 93/4, Barty felt his heart sink.

Their first year at Hogwarts had flown by with an almost cruel amount of speed, and now he was going to have to spend the next three months at home, being berated by his father and pitied by their house elf. In short, it would be like nothing in his life had changed at all, despite the fact that things had changed exponentially. For one thing, he no longer walked with a slouch; realizing that he was _good_ at Charms had made him feel better about himself. It was something he could do that few other students matched his skills at; he’d thought to himself, on more than one occasion, that maybe he wouldn’t prove to be as useless as his father thought he was, after all. He didn’t know what he would _do_ with these skills just yet, but he still had Edgar’s advice playing on a loop in the back of his mind:

_“You ought to do something sensational. Something people will write about in A History of Magic. He wouldn’t be able to ignore you if you did that.”_

Stepping off of the train with the boy in question, tugging his trunk along behind him, Barty sighed.

“Can’t we just go back?” he asked, glancing over at Edgar, and Edgar frowned just a little. There was a hint of the misery that he had seen written all over Barty’s face when they met bleeding into his voice, and he didn’t like it one bit. Opening his mouth to respond, he was cut off when a little girl with curly brown hair pulled up in pigtails all but tackled him to the ground.

“ _Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!_ You’re never gonna guess what Mummy and Daddy have done. You’ll never guess!” After a brief pause, she exclaimed, “Go on, then! Guess!”

Snickering at his younger sister’s enthusiasm, Edgar shook his head. “I haven’t got a clue.”

Beside him, Barty snorted and whispered, _“Eddie?”_ in recollection of the very explicit request that he was not to call him precisely that. Edgar just sighed.

“We’re going to the _Quidditch World Cup!_ ” Cecilia exclaimed, bouncing on her toes just as Mr. and Mrs. Finch finally caught up to her. Edgar’s eyes were wide.

“Are we?” he asked, and his parents both grinned.

“She let the cat out of the bag, I take it,” Mr. Finch said, prompting his son to make an excited little noise. Mrs. Finch smiled and added, “It’s meant to be a present for doing so well on your exams.”

“But marks don’t even come out until the end of the month!” Edgar exclaimed, flabbergasted. His parents just shared a Look™ that clearly signified a shared amusement at the idea that Edgar Finch would ever do anything less than exceptionally well.

Before anyone had a chance to say anything else, Edgar blurted out, “Can Barty come along?”

“Of _course_ he’s coming along, silly,” Cecilia sighed, very heavily for a now-seven-year-old, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s his _birthday_ present. Mummy already sent an owl to his mummy asking if he could come, and she said yes.”

Barty just stood there, stunned. He’d never been invited to go _anywhere_ before, and now he was being asked to go with his best friend’s family to the _Quidditch World Cup?_ Clearly, his father couldn’t have gotten wind of that owl; if he had, he never would have agreed to let him go.

Then again, it could be viewed as an easy way to get Barty out of his hair. Either way, Barty decided that he didn’t care. He simply lurched forward and hugged Mrs. and Mr. Finch in equal measure.

“ _Thankyouthankyouthankyou_ ,” he said in a rush, nearly vibrating with excitement. This meant he wouldn’t be stuck at home for the _entire_ summer; it also meant he wouldn’t have to wait until September to see Edgar again – both of which made it the best birthday present that he ever could have asked for. He didn’t even care if he ended up eating cake all alone with Winky on June 13th; the end of the summer now held beautiful promise.

_“Bartemius Crouch Jr!”_

Inwardly, Barty placed emphasis upon “ _the end_ of summer.” First, he needed to make it through the beginning and the middle. Turning, he saw his parents approaching, his father’s assistant quickly tagging along behind them. She was dragging a trunk of her own, and Barty didn’t know whether to be upset or relieved by that fact, given it meant his father was likely heading off on a trip.

“Father, Mother,” he greeted them when they finally bridged the gap of space separating them from the Finch brood. Nodding at the dark-haired assistant, he added, “Matilda.”

“Hello, Barty,” Matilda greeted him in return, offering him a smile. Barty had nothing against the woman, even if she was a physical manifestation of how little time and attention his father had for him. Matilda herself was a very kind witch; she always brought him a cupcake on his birthday, given she knew his father wouldn’t remember it.

“I’m off to Hogsmeade for the week; your mother said we might catch you when you were getting in,” Barty Crouch Sr. intoned, nodding cordially at the Finches, but Barty knew that was code for “I forgot you were coming home today and your mother only just reminded me of it before we apparated here.”

Barty offered his father a nod of understanding. He didn’t dare risk saying too much to him, in case it should give him ammunition to berate him in front of Edgar and his family. Turning instead to look at his mother, Barty managed a smile as he said, “Mother, this is Edgar Finch.”

“So _this_ is Edgar,” Mrs. Crouch said, a kind smile on her face as she added, “The boy who’s going to be talking to Merpeople by Year Five.”

Edgar blushed and offered Mrs. Crouch a smile.

“Barty may have exaggerated a bit in his letters,” he disagreed, but Mrs. Crouch just grinned.

“Something tells me he’s not wrong, just the same.”

“I’m off to catch the 5:00 o’clock,” Mr. Crouch stated, cutting into the moment, and he paused before awkwardly patting Barty on the head – undoubtedly only because the Finches were watching. “Matilda? Come along.”

And he breezed away down the platform, Matilda trailing behind him with his suitcase in tow. Edgar, who by now had extensive knowledge of just how terrible Mr. Crouch was, tossed Barty a Look™ of their own. Barty returned it with a sigh.

Truth be told, he was glad that his father had a prior engagement. It meant that there was no reason he couldn’t talk his mother into going for ice cream – a suggestion made enthusiastically by Cecilia which Mr. and Mrs. Finch hadn’t refused. Mr. Crouch was always too busy to do anything with his family that didn’t involve a photo opportunity of some kind, so it was a welcome change of pace just to venture out into London with his mother at one side and his best friend at the other for a pleasant afternoon. While they all talked and laughed over mint-chip, chocolate swirl, and butterscotch ripple, Barty realized that, despite being home for the summer, perhaps he could still be as happy as he’d been at Hogwarts. He wasn’t alone anymore, after all.

It was certainly a step up from being anxious, slouchy, and utterly miserable.


	3. Look to the Sky & Think of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With their second year at Hogwarts just around the corner, Barty and Edgar head to the 1975 Quidditch World Cup with Mr & Mrs Finch and Cecilia. Later, Professor Rakepick makes an unexpected announcement...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Professor Rakepick canonically doesn't start teaching at Hogwarts until the mid-1980s, but the only DADA professor predating her retired in the 1940s soooooo... just go with it, okay? She's very fighty, so it'll be worth it.

The summer holidays for Barty and Edgar were two very different experiences – that is to say, they were different from each other. For each of the boys, much of their summer holidays were spent in the same way that they always were.

For Edgar, summer holidays meant trips to the beach with Mrs. Finch and Cecilia, trips to Diagon Alley to pick up new books at Flourish & Blotts, evenings spent laughing over ice cream cones, and Mr. Finch diligently trying to teach him how to properly fly a broomstick. ( _His flying lessons in first year had comprised mainly of sliding around on his broom until he was dangling upside down while Barty, who seemed to be naturally gifted, flew circles around him and laughed_.)

For Barty, summer holidays meant endless days shut up in the gloomy Crouch mansion, doing his very best to avoid his father’s scorn – on the rare occasions that Bartemius Sr. was even home. This meant that he spent a great deal of time holed up in his bedroom, reading books that Edgar had let him borrow, writing letters to Edgar, and wishing that Edgar were there with him to save him from his perpetual boredom. At least this summer he had Dodgie to keep him company; her pleasant little hoots and coos were a far more pleasing sound than Winky’s constant babbling of, “Master Barty looks lonely. Should Winky get Master Barty some sweets from the kitchen? Winky will keep Master Barty company, yes, she will…”

Deep down, Barty knew that the house elf meant well. That didn’t, however, stop him from hating her, just a little, for pitying him. He didn’t want anyone’s pity.

When the day finally came that he was meant to meet the Finches and accompany them to the Quidditch World Cup, he honestly thought that he may weep for joy. Being reunited with his best friend _and_ attending the most exciting event of the wizarding year? It was quite literally a dream come true; he’d been dreaming about it since the night that he and his mother returned home from Platform 93/4.

Mrs. Crouch accompanied her son on the much-awaited afternoon to London, where they were meant to meet with Edgar and his family, and Barty practically bounced the entire time they walked down Oxford Street. His mother couldn’t help but smile at the sight. After watching Barty mope around the house all summer, it was a cheering change of pace.

“Remember what I told you, now,” she cautioned the twelve-year-old and Barty sighed, repeating the mantra his mother had been telling him since they left home that morning.

“To be on my best behaviour, even if the crowd gets rowdy, because the family has a reputation to upkeep; to thank Mr. and Mrs. Finch at least seven times before the day is through; to offer to pay for things, since they’ve paid for my ticket; and under no circumstances am I to buy a broomstick while I’m there, unless I want to be grounded until I’m eighteen.”

Mrs. Crouch smiled and ruffled her son’s already messy hair.

The last rule had less to do with the family’s reputation and having good manners, and more to do with the fact that Mrs. Crouch was a worry-wart. It didn’t matter that Barty had aced his flying lessons at Hogwarts, or that Professor Slughorn said that he’d be a shoo-in for making the Slytherin quidditch team in a few more years; she didn’t like the idea of him flying around like a bat out of Hell and was convinced that he would break his neck if he flew more than five feet off of the ground.  

Barty was hopeful that she would change her mind by fifth year – not that anything was going to stop him from going to try-outs, anyway, but he would feel better doing it with her blessing. Just because he was _good_ at being sneaky didn’t mean he liked doing it.

When they reached the lamppost on the corner of Oxford and Vere where they had planned to meet with the Finches, Mrs. Crouch began to properly fuss over her son, trying to smooth his unruly hair down – but her efforts were cut short when, a moment later, an eager young voice shouted, “ _Barty!_ ”

His head whipping around so fast that it was nothing short of a miracle that he didn’t give himself whiplash, Barty’s brown eyes lit up when he caught sight of the aforementioned family coming down Vere Street. Mrs. Finch was holding Cecilia’s hand to keep her from running off, Mr. Finch was carrying a bag that was undoubtedly bigger on the inside, and Edgar was running down the street at full speed, grinning like a maniac.

“ _Edgar!_ ” Barty exclaimed with giddy delight, pulling out of his mother’s fussy grasp and running down the street just as fast. They met in the middle with enough force to cause a sonic boom, tossing their arms around each other in a tight embrace. You would think that they hadn’t seen each other in years, rather than the three months that it had actually been. That’s what it was like to have a best friend, though – or, at least, that’s how it was for Edgar and Barty.

Mrs. Finch tossed Mrs. Crouch an amused smile when they all finally caught up with the boys, who were already chatting amicably.

“Did you get my last letter? The one about the trading cards I got in the pack of chocolate frogs my grandmother sent me and Cecilia?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Barty groaned, still clinging to Edgar’s jumper. “I can’t believe you got a Bowman Wright. I’ve _never_ found a Bowman Wright.”

“I know,” Edgar mused, looking all too pleased, and Barty huffed. “I have, though – in a pack when I was seven. That was a good one, too; I also got a Cyprian Youdle and a Gwenog Jones.”

“Wait – what?” Barty asked, furrowing his brow. A second later, Edgar had dug into the pocket of his jumper and pulled out a particularly shiny trading card.

“ _What?_ ” Barty squeaked, his eyes widening when Edgar handed it over to him.

“I’ve already got one,” he repeated, shrugging as if it were not a big deal at all. “I don’t need two.”

“But I haven’t got anything to trade you for it!” Barty exclaimed, gaping down at the card in his hands. Edgar just flashed him a smile.

“Consider it an extra birthday present.”

As soon as he got over the initial shock, Barty tossed his arms around Edgar again, sniffling theatrically and exclaiming, “Oh, I love you; I really, really do!”

Edgar grinned and gave Barty’s head a pat, looking extremely pleased with himself as he mused, “Oh, I know.”

Cecilia, looking up at Mrs. Finch, asked, “Why’re they so weird, Mummy?”

Mrs. Finch did her best to repress her laughter, shushing Cecilia before properly speaking up.

“Alright, you two; we really ought to be off. We’ve got to find the portkey in Cavendish Square Gardens, and then there’s the whole business of finding our seats before the match begins…”

“Cavendish Square Gardens,” Mr. Finch mused, slinging his bag over his shoulder and giving his head a curious shake. “A strange place to put the portkey, really, with so many muggles about. What do you think they’re playing at?”

“Oh, you know how they are. They like to make it amusing,” Mrs. Finch mused, and Mrs. Crouch arched a thin, blonde eyebrow.

“What form have they made it take this year?” she asked.

The Finches both smirked.

“It’s an old pop bottle,” Mrs. Finch explained, “just lying on the ground right next to a rubbish bin. I think they wanted to see how many muggles would just walk right by without bothering to pick it up or even giving it a second glance. It’s terrible, really, how filthy they are.”

Edgar grimaced slightly at his mother’s backward and generalized statement about muggles, and Barty pursed his lips, but both boys said nothing. There was very little that they could do to change the way that their elders viewed the world; all that they could _really_ do was lead by example. It was, after all, much simpler to teach a tadpole new tricks than a toad.

“Let’s go, shall we?” Mr. Finch finally said and Mrs. Crouch, with a bit of difficulty, pulled Barty away from Edgar long enough to give him a hug.

“Remember what I told you,” she repeated for the umpteenth time and Barty sighed, hugging her in return.

“I’ll remember,” he promised before letting her go and rejoining Edgar and the Finches, whereupon they all headed for Cavendish Square Gardens.

* * *

It was everything that Barty had dreamed it would be. The field in which the quidditch pitch had been erected was filled with tents and carts and wagons, with witches and wizards and magical creatures of every kind, and it was almost _too_ much, at first. To go from spending an entire summer with only his owl, a house elf, and his mother for company to being elbow-to-elbow with people wherever he turned? For a moment, when they had landed where the portkey delivered them (i.e. right into the thick of things), Barty had just stood there, brown eyes wide and mouth agape. He wasn’t sure what else to do.

“Right-o!” Mr. Finch exclaimed, rubbing his hands together before reaching into his bag and fishing out what appeared to be a tent. “Let’s get home-base set up and then have a look around, eh?”

As Mr. Finch placed the tent on the ground and began assembling it with a few careful swishes of his wand, Edgar noticed that Barty still hadn’t moved. Resting a hand on his shoulder, he gave him a small shake and asked, “Alright there, mate?”

Barty blinked when Edgar snapped him out of his reverie, shaking his head and turning to look at him, offering up a tiny smile as he said, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s just… _a lot_ , y’know?”

Smiling, Edgar gave Barty’s shoulder a squeeze and steered him into the tent once Mr. Finch had finished assembling it. Inside, the hustle and bustle of the quidditch grounds faded to a nearly indiscernible murmur. Stunned, Barty poked his head outside again before drawing it back in, staring at the relatively thin fabric clutched in his hand. Mrs. Finch caught his stunned expression and smiled.

“It’s a silencing charm; makes the place feel a bit homier, wherever you are.”

She was busy preparing a lunch of sandwiches and crisps while Cecilia jumped on the larger of the four beds that the tent played host to, and that was when Barty properly noticed the _size_ of the tent. It wasn’t just the bag that was bigger on the inside, then. Grinning and letting go of the flap that served as the tent’s door, Barty strolled further inside and murmured, “ _Wicked_.”

“Never been camping, Barty?” Mr. Finch asked as he began to unpack the contents of his bag, which included several blankets, a phrasebook, extra robes for in case the match went late into the night and it got cold, and five pint-sized bottles of butterbeer from Hogsmeade. Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, Barty shook his head.

“Never,” he admitted, walking over to take a seat at the table that resided in the center of the tent, gratefully accepting a sandwich from Mrs. Finch. “Father’s not really… the outdoorsy type.”

_Or the father-son bonding type_ , Barty thought but kept that detail to himself, his mother’s words about preserving the family’s reputation echoing around in his head. Seated across from him, Edgar shot him a sympathetic look as Mrs. Finch passed him his own sandwich.

“Really?” Mr. Finch asked as he pulled a rather large stuffed rabbit from his bag, passing it into Cecilia’s eager arms when she hurried over to claim it. “That’s odd; he’s always seemed so vocal about the importance of maintaining our ties with nature during his campaign speeches. Quite a smart bloke, your father.”

“Oh, yes; the smartest,” Barty agreed, doing his best to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He knew the truth about his father’s ‘passion for the wilderness,’ and it had far more to do with hunting for dark wizards who got up to nefarious things in the woods than celebrating the spiritual roots of alchemy and divination.

“Are you close with your father, Barty? It must be so exciting, living with a man who’s doing such brave, dangerous work to keep us all safe,” Mrs. Finch mused as she put a sandwich in front of Cecilia, who she had just made take a seat at the table. Upon having her ask if he and his father were close, Barty nearly choked on his crisps. Sensing his distress, and not wanting his friend to have to tell any bald-faced lies, Edgar quickly cut in.

“Mum, could Barty and I take a look around the vendors’ village after lunch, before the match starts? I want to get a pair of those funny little Wimbourne glasses that’re shaped like wasps.”

Mrs. Finch, as Edgar had hoped, turned her attention to him instead of Barty, mulling over his request before shrugging.

“I suppose there would be no harm in the two of you doing a bit of exploring,” she agreed, and Edgar groaned when Cecilia immediately started chirruping, “I wanna go, too!”

“You’ll only run off!” Edgar protested.

“I will _not!_ I’ll be good, Mummy, I _swear_ it. Please, please, please, please, please, please, _please-_ ” Cecilia began to plead incessantly and Mrs. Finch looked about to refuse her, on the same grounds that Edgar had, when Barty cut in.

_He’d been told to be polite, after all._

“It’s alright, Mrs. Finch; I’ll make sure she doesn’t run away,” he stated, prompting a flabbergasted look from Edgar and an exceedingly cheerful one from little Cecilia.

“Yes, Mummy; Barty will take good care of me, even if Eddie would like to see me kidnapped by goblins so he could have a bigger bedroom.”

Edgar made an affronted noise at his sister’s accusation and Barty snickered. After they all finished eating lunch, they set off for the vendor’s village; Cecilia insisted upon holding Barty’s hand instead of her brother’s and Edgar could barely get a word in edgewise over her chattering.

“We went to see some dragons in Scotland back in July and they were so, so big! Big and mean and they breathed fire and Daddy almost had his eyebrows singed off when he got too close and it was so _funny,_ Barty, it really was! Eddie was scared of the Hungarian Horntail-”

“I was _not-_ ”

“-but I wasn’t! It was my _favourite_ because it was the biggest and the meanest and it looked like it would gobble us all up if it got free from its handlers.”

Barty was exceedingly amused by her endless babbling. As an only child, he didn’t know what it was like to have a younger sibling – and, while Edgar was constantly complaining about how terribly his sister annoyed him, Barty didn’t think he would mind so terribly if he had a sister who annoyed him. At least then he wouldn’t be so dreadfully _lonely_ all the time in that big old house.

“You like big, mean things that look like they could gobble you up? Did you want it to gobble you?” Barty asked the little girl with a grin and she made a thoughtful face before shaking her head, her curly pigtails bouncing with the motion.

“No – it’s just exciting to know that it _could_ gobble me up. I don’t think I’d like it much, being gobbled.”

Barty snorted out a laugh as they weaved through the crowd in the vendors’ village, looking around at brightly coloured team memorabilia – namely yellow & black and blue & silver this year, for the Wimbourne Wasps were playing against the Appleby Arrows. There was, in fact, a vendor who was selling broomsticks, which Barty tossed a longing glance toward before forcing himself to press onward. He _really_ didn’t feel like being grounded until he turned eighteen.

When they reached the vendor who was selling Wasps merchandise, Edgar went about buying a pair of the glasses he had been searching for while Cecilia bounced up and down and pointed at a large, stuffed wasp toy that was hanging from a hook in the cart. Like the Hungarian Horntail, it was big and looked mean, and so Cecilia exclaimed, “Look! Look at the wasp! Can I get it, Edgar, please, please, _please_ -?”

Tucking his glasses into the pocket of his robes, Edgar frowned and shook his head.

“You don’t have any money, Cilia, and that costs…” Blanching, he exclaimed, “Nine galleons, six sickles, and a knut! That’s nearly a month’s allowance!”

Cecilia pouted and stared longingly up at the wasp. After a moment, Barty cleared his throat and offered, “Er… I could get it for her.”

“What?” Edgar asked, blinking with surprise.

“I could get it for her,” Barty repeated, already fishing around in the pocket of his robes with the hand not holding Cecilia’s for the necessary amount of money. “Your parents bought my ticket and invited me along, so, y’know, it’s… the least that I can do.”

“You don’t have to,” Edgar insisted, stunned, but Barty just shrugged and turned his attention to the vendor, gesturing to the stuffed wasp.

“One of those for the little girl, please?”

Taking the proffered money, the vendor passed the stuffed wasp down to Barty before turning his attention to the next person in line. Cecilia’s eyes widened with delight when Barty handed it to her.

“Really, really?” she asked, latching her arm around it, and Barty nodded.

“Yep,” he confirmed, unsure of what else to say.

Cecilia responded by letting go of Barty’s hand in favour of hugging him tightly around the knees and shouting, “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re _my_ best friend now, okay? We’ll be best friends forever and ever and _ever._ ”

Edgar made a disgruntled little noise and Barty blushed. Nevertheless, he allowed Cecilia to latch onto his hand again and drag him about the quidditch grounds, where the three of them bought licorice whips to share and eagerly chattered about who was going to win that evening’s match. Both Edgar and Cecilia were rooting for the Wasps but Barty thought the Arrows stood a better chance - and, for a moment, Cecilia seriously considered recanting her declaration that they would be best friends _forever_ …

* * *

When one of the Arrows’ chasers whipped past their box on his broomstick, two of Wasps’ chasers hot on his tail, Barty latched onto the sleeve of Edgar’s robes and gave a hoot of delight that could have put Dodgie to shame. Clad in a pair of blue robes that he’d bought himself to properly fit in with the spectators, he and Edgar were a rather eccentric pair given that Edgar was wearing his Wasps glasses and had a bouncy pair of antennae stuck in his curls.

It was well past midnight and the score was 158-154 for the Wasps; it seemed like the game that was destined to never end and everyone in the crowd knew that it was very possible that it could go on for days – _weeks,_ even. The Arrows had played against the Vratsa Vultures for sixteen days straight back in the 1930s.

Leaning over the railing to watch as the Arrows’ chaser lobbed the quaffle toward the nearest beater, Barty’s eyes shone.

“I could do that, y’know,” he stated, glancing over at Edgar. “I’m the fastest flyer in our year; I _know_ I could do it.”

Edgar tossed Barty a small smirk as he asked, “Has your mum let up on the flying ban yet?”

Sighing, Barty pursed his lips and muttered, “ _No –_ but that’s not gonna stop me. She’s never actually _seen_ me fly; she doesn’t get it. If she could just _see_ me-”

Barty was cut off, however, by an uproarious round of cheers – some of which came from Mr. Finch and Edgar. The Wasps had managed to reclaim the quaffle and had just scored a ten-point shot on the Arrows’ keeper. Barty exhaled a quiet huff that, over the noise, nobody could hear.

Mrs. Finch and Cecilia had gone back to the tent roughly an hour prior; the seven-year-old could only stay up so late before she properly passed out and needed to be taken to bed, her stuffed wasp tucked beneath her arm. Mrs. Finch had been delighted that Barty had been kind enough to buy it for her; she’d pinched his cheek and kissed his forehead, making him blush even more than Cecilia’s gratitude had.

“She’ll see you, mate; don’t worry. My mum’s a worry-wart, too, y’know,” Edgar supplied and Barty sighed, tossing Edgar a teasing look.

“Yeah, but that’s different. Every time you get on a broom, you very well _could_ fall to your death.”

“Not true,” Edgar disagreed, crossing his arms over his chest as he sat back in his seat, smirking. “You’d always catch me before I could hit the ground.”

Barty had done so, on more than one occasion, during flying lessons last autumn. He smirked in return and nudged Edgar’s side with his elbow.

“What’re friends for, right?”

Edgar nudged Barty back with a grin. Seconds later, they were both on their feet and leaning over the railing of their box, Mr. Finch eagerly doing the same beside Edgar, for the announcer had just declared that both teams’ seekers were in hot pursuit of the golden snitch high above the pitch. No one could really see who was in the lead, given how dark it was, but a moment later the question in everyone’s mind was answered when fireworks burst throughout the sky, brilliantly blue and silver, in the shape of an arrow. The lights reflected in Barty’s eyes as he beamed, unabashedly gleeful.

With a score of 304-168, the Appleby Arrows had won the Quidditch World Cup and he had witnessed it with his own two eyes. Mr. Finch muttered a disappointed exclamation about the Wasps being robbed, but Edgar found he didn’t care quite as much as his father did; it was hard to be displeased when it was clear just how _happy_ Barty was. Reaching over, he gave his best friend a big hug which Barty eagerly returned as he exclaimed in a giddy, sing-songy voice, “I told you! I told you they’d win! I told you, I told you, I told you!”

His wasp-shaped glasses having gone askew from Barty’s eager bouncing, Edgar just laughed and shook his head before Barty returned to the railing to watch the final events unfold. Patrons were shooting arrows from their wands up through the air and down onto the pitch below, as was customary for celebrating an Arrows’ win, and the fireworks continued up above, illuminating nearly every inch of the sky with twinkling lights.

Certain that nothing could wipe the smile off of his face, Barty eagerly told Edgar, “That’s gonna be me someday. Ten, fifteen years down the road, it’ll be me at the Quidditch World Cup and everybody will remember my name.”

He kept to himself his inner declaration of, _They’ll remember me for who I am – not for who my father is._ Beside him, possessing every bit of faith in the world that he’d be watching Barty’s victory from the crowd, Edgar smiled.

* * *

Their second year at Hogwarts was much like the first, aside from one particularly exciting difference.

_Exciting for Barty, at any rate_.

Professor Rakepick had decided that they’d had enough theory in Defense Against the Dark Arts in their first year and that second-year ought to afford them a bit more practical experience. This, she informed them, would be achieved most appropriately in the form of in-class duelling.

_Duelling._ Real, actual duelling, with jinxes and hexes and all of the charms that had been rattling around in Barty’s head for ages but that he knew he would get in trouble if he used on anyone, even if that someone was being a right old bully.

( _Barty did make the mistake of using a bat-bogey hex on a particularly nasty sixth-year Gryffindor who had been picking on a first-year Slytherin girl. It had been barely a week into their second year when he hexed the boy and he’d been sent straight to Professor Dumbledore’s office by Professor Flitwick for his misconduct. Dumbledore, however, had opted not to punish him; he had, after all, been defending a younger student, which the headmaster felt was admirable. He ended up docking fifteen points from Slytherin for the unauthorized use of a hex on school grounds, while he docked thirty from Gryffindor for bullying, and – most importantly of all – no letter was sent home to the Crouch household regarding his behaviour. Barty decided, at that moment, that he_ **_did_ ** _like Professor Dumbledore, regardless of how his father felt about him. He liked the headmaster very much_.)

He was tickled pink at the notion of being allowed to put all of the spells and techniques that he had been practicing last year to ‘practical use’ – and he intended to win every duel that he was placed in.

Barty did not, however, expect to be told to duel _Edgar_. It was an assignment given to them near the end of their first semester, right before the holidays; Professor Rakepick’s exact words were that they were both “exceedingly skilled” duelers, for their age, and that they would get more of a challenge out of the exercise by duelling each other than they had thus far with other, less skilled students.

Her reason was, in truth, a fair conclusion to come to; Barty had been helping Edgar practice his charms since Professor Rakepick made her declaration about duelling on the first day of class and he had improved exponentially with the extra help. They had become quite a formidable pair.

Among Barty’s triumphs were Isabella Floss, a Gryffindor girl whom he bound with magical rope with a single shout of _“Incarcerous!”_ roughly three seconds into the duel; Theodore Dibbles, a fellow Slytherin, wound up with particularly large incisors that he tripped over after Barty cast _“Densaugeo!”_ upon him; and Fenwick Mortle, a muggle-born Gryffindor, put up a valiant effort but wound up on the floor, immobilized by a cleverly timed casting of _“Petrificus Totalus!”_

Edgar’s successes included Martin Scwob, a Slytherin boy whom he sent tumbling by casting _“Locomotor Mortis!”_ ; Alicia Carlisle, a Gryffindor who had toppled over backwards after receiving Edgar’s jelly-legs jinx; and Belladonna Drake, whose “ _Stupefy!”_ Edgar avoided and upon whom he cast a retaliatory pimple jinx. She’d been utterly horrified and, when Professor Rakepick hadn’t been able to reverse _all_ of the pimples, she wouldn’t speak to Edgar for weeks.

Neither Barty nor Edgar had felt particularly guilty for the public humiliation that they caused the students they beat during duelling lessons; if they didn’t want to wind up with giant teeth and pimples, then they should have practiced more.

But duelling against _each other?_ It was… well, it was _different._ They were _friends_ . Moreover, they’d spent all semester practicing _together;_ they knew all of each other’s moves. How was that fair? Thus, the boys didn’t say much on the afternoon that they had to compete against each other. Their anxiety had made them a few minutes late and they walked to Professor Rakepick’s classroom in total (and awkward) silence - and were greeted by the eager gazes of their classmates when they walked in.

Their fellow students had placed bets on who they thought would win, but who they _hoped_ would win was a different matter entirely – one that was dictated by whether Barty or Edgar had beaten them.

Dropping their bags at the desk that they shared, Barty and Edgar both made their way to the front of the class, each fidgeting with their wands. Professor Rakepick was waiting for them at the front of the room.

“You recall the rules, I’m sure, but I will reiterate them anyway,” she stated, tossing her red hair away from her eyes before flicking her wand in the direction of the classroom’s blackboard. A piece of chalk levitated beneath her command and began scribbling down the rules that she dictated.

“No self-invented charms are to be used; nothing that may cause intentional or accidental bloodshed is permitted; and the first wizard to disarm their opponent is the victor. Are we perfectly clear?”

Not letting their eyes waver from each other, both Barty and Edgar exhaled a duet of, “Yes, Professor.”

“Good.” Leaning back against her desk, Professor Rakepick crossed her arms over her purple robes before declaring, “Wands at the ready.”

Both boys lifted their arms into the appropriate duelling position, which really isn’t all that different from the beginning stance in muggle fencing, and awaited Professor Rakepick’s command.

“Hold… and… _commence._ ”

For a long moment, Barty and Edgar both remained immobile and just _stared_ at each other, as if they could calculate how the other was going to begin. A student in the back of the class coughed, the sound echoing off of the stone walls in the silent room. Then, quick as a flash, Edgar gave an abrupt flick of his wrist and cast _“Rictusempra!”_ at the same moment that Barty swished his wand to the right and cast _“Impedimenta!”_

Their spells met in the middle with a bright flash of light and a shower of sparks and, with that, they were off. It was both a battle of wits and agility, with Edgar tossing charm after charm and Barty parrying all of his attacks before tossing back his own in retaliation. It was the longest duel that the class had seen by far, with them still hashing it out six minutes after Professor Rakepick had given the commencement order, and several students had leapt to their feet to cheer the boys on.

“Go on, Barty! Give it to him!” Belladonna, still bearing a single pimple on her cheek, exclaimed, and Theodore Dibbles gave a shout of, “Show him up, Edgar! Knock him down right and proper!”

It was quite a raucous and _clearly_ not what Professor Rakepick had been expecting when she had assigned the boys to duel each other. She had expected that, _perhaps_ , they would last a minute or two longer than the other students had, but verging on ten minutes? There was sweat beading on both of their brows, with Edgar’s curls sticking to his forehead, when she finally decided to cut in.

“Alright, boys, I think that you ought to call a truce and-”

_“Aguamenti!”_

Professor Rakepick gave a startled gasp and stumbled back a few steps when a burst of water shot forward, and she looked positively horrified when Barty was sent sprawling over to the other side of the room and into the neighbouring wall by the blast. He slid downward and landed on the floor in a wet heap. The class went deathly silent and Edgar’s laboured breathing was the only sound in the room; it was then that he realized, with his wand still held at the ready, that Barty wasn’t moving.

Barty’s wand had been dropped when the force of Edgar’s spell smashed into him, which effectively made Edgar the victor, but he quickly realized that he didn’t care. His eyes widening when he realized what he had done, he dropped his wand and rushed forward, hands grasping at Barty’s shoulders through his soaked robes as he cried, “ _Barty!_ Barty – oh no, _oh no,_ I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean to, I swear I didn’t, I didn’t, I-!” 

It took him a few seconds to process through his panic that Barty, who he had been terrified that he’d rendered unconscious, was _laughing._ Lifting a hand, Barty pushed his sopping wet hair out of his eyes - which were glittering with delight - and exclaimed, “That was _brilliant! You’re_ brilliant! _Aguamenti;_ I never would’ve thought of that. Caught me completely off guard.”

Barty managed to get out another exclamation of “brilliant!” before Edgar made a tiny noise and tugged him into a hug. He’d been so scared, for a moment, that he really had hurt him; that he’d been so focused on doing well in the class that he completely forgot who he was duelling against. Clinging to Barty as a murmur floated through the class, followed by cheers and exclamations of his name, Edgar whispered, “Don’t _ever_ make me do that again.”

Smirking when Edgar drew back, Barty rubbed his eye when a drop of water fell into it from his bangs and asked, “What – and let you disarm me without a proper fight? Where’s the fun in that?”

Making another small, distressed noise, Edgar shook his head and grabbed Barty’s hand to tug him to his feet. Professor Rakepick didn’t quite know what to do with herself. After a moment, she cleared her throat and gestured for the class to settle down before she spoke.

“I, ehm… I suppose Mr. Finch is the victor. Bravo, Edgar; very well done. Er… Mr. Crouch?”

“Yes, Professor?” Barty asked, still grinning from ear-to-ear as he nudged Edgar’s side.

“Would you like to go back to your dormitory and dry off?”

“Hmm? Oh.” Glancing down at his dripping robes, Barty grinned and mused, “Maybe I ought to.”

“Perhaps,” Professor Rakepick agreed.

The rest of the lesson was uneventful in comparison; a pair of Gryffindor boys duelled for twenty seconds before one of them dropped their wand, entirely of his own accord, and a Slytherin girl cast a rather wicked bat-bogey hex on a Gryffindor boy that made everyone laugh. Nothing was quite as entertaining as watching Barty and Edgar had been, though.

After the class was dismissed, several students took to the corridor to exchange galleons based upon how they had placed their bets. A great deal of money was handed over to a relatively small number of students, for not many people had placed their bets on Edgar beating Barty. He was _good,_ but none of his classmates had believed that he was _that_ good.

Before Edgar could exit the classroom to go and double check that Barty really was alright, Professor Rakepick pulled him aside and asked, “Tell me, Mr. Finch; have you ever considered becoming an auror?”


End file.
